Sam died July 20, 2016, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Born in Tianjin, China, Sam’s childhood was marked by civil and world war. Fleeing to America in 1949, his family settled on the East Coast, where Sam attended Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. At Princeton, he majored in electrical engineering, ate at Quadrangle Club, and served on the Undergraduate Council staff.
After graduation, Sam continued engineering studies at Columbia, but then changed direction and entered Yale, earning a Ph.D. in economics. He remained at Yale as an assistant professor, and while on a research sabbatical in Taiwan in 1966, met and married Sharon Tang. In 1970 Sam and Sharon moved to Vancouver, where Sam took a professorship in the economics department at the University of British Columbia. In 1985 he became head of the department, and in 1996 he became director of the Centre for Chinese Research, where he focused on the Chinese economy.
Sam and Sharon were world travelers of the first order, visiting Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Nepal, Peru, Russia, Thailand, Tibet, and Turkey over a period of 20 years. Their odyssey ended sadly in 2008 when Sharon died of brain cancer.
Sam is survived by his daughters Samantha and Melissa, three grandchildren, and numerous other kin, to whom we extend our sympathies.